Teddy Cruz

Teddy Cruz is recognized internationally for his urban and architectural research of the Tijuana-San Diego border, advancing border immigrant neighborhoods as sites of cultural production, from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing and civic infrastructure. His investigation of this geography of conflict has inspired a practice and pedagogy that emerges from the particularities of this bicultural territory and the integration of theoretical research, pedagogy and design production. He is currently a Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism in the Visual Arts Department, and Director of Urban Research in the UCSD Center on Global Justice. Cruz has received many awards for his work including the prestigious Rome Prize in Architecture, the James Stirling Memorial Lecture On The City Prize, a US Artist award, the "Global Award for Sustainable Architecture," by the French National Museum of Architecture in partnership with the UNESCO; and he was selected by the FORD Foundation to receive their "Visionary Leader Award." Most recently, Cruz was named one of the 50 Most Influential Designers in America by Fast Company Magazine and received the 2013 Architecture Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City.

With long-time research partner, UCSD political theorist, Fonna Forman, he is a principal in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice, based in San Diego. Their work emphasizes urban conflict and informality as sites for engaging public policy and civic infrastructure, with a special emphasis on Latin American cities. Their practice blurs conventional academic boundaries between research, teaching and service; and convenes knowledges from across the fields of architecture and urbanism, environmental and social practice, political theory and urban policy, visual arts and public culture, and mediates the interface between top-down institutions (governments, universities, foundations) and the bottom-up intelligence of marginalized communities. In 2012 they co-founded the UCSD Cross-Border Initiative and the UCSD Community Stations to foster corridors of knowledge exchange between the university and marginalized communities across the border region. And from 2012-13 they served as special advisors on Civic and Urban Initiatives for the City of San Diego and led the development of its Civic Innovation Lab.

Cruz's architectural and artistic work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at important cultural venues such as The Centro Cultural de Tijuana, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, The San Francisco Art Institute, Casa de America in Madrid and the PARC Foundation; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, and Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. He has also exhibited at the Istanbul Art Biennial, the Auckland Triennial and Madrid Abierto 2010, Architecture Biennials in Rotterdam, Lisbon and Shenzhen, and in 2008 represented the US in the American Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. His work has been exhibited in several significant shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, including Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement; Home Delivery, a major show on prefabrication and housing, 9+1 Ways of Being Political: 50 Years of Political Stances in Architecture and Urban Design; and Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter. His work is part of the permanent architecture collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.